Stevie Wonder, Kings of Leon and other volunteer to play at Global Citizen Festival

Stevie Wonder is among the music acts donating their time for the Global Citizen Festival in New York's Central Park. Source: AP

STEVIE Wonder, Alicia Keys, John Mayer and Kings of Leon have all volunteered their time to an Australian man's project to end extreme poverty.

The acts have all agreed to work for free for the second Global Citizen Festival in New York's Central Park, and organiser Hugh Evans hope you will, too.

Tickets are again free for the September 28 event, but must be earned through acts meant to help end extreme poverty around the world.

The festival is designed to coincide with the UN General Assembly meeting and put pressure on world leaders to address the needs of the world's poor. Fans can earn points toward tickets through simple tasks like sending letters to political leaders or reposting information through social media.

Mr Evans, the 30-year-old chief executive officer of the Global Poverty Project, says the festival's non-profit partners pledged $US1.3 billion in new fundraising commitments last year and nearly 70,000 people took more than 700,000 actions through the project's website.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Foo Fighters and The Black Keys headlined the first year. Evans said he and the organisers who help him pick a line-up approach the task with goals in mind.

"We write a big list and we think, 'Who will effectively represent the cause of ending extreme poverty in the way they perform and the way they're involved, and who would also inspire a generation of people to take action?'" Mr Evans said.

A NOTE ABOUT RELEVANT ADVERTISING: We collect information about the content (including ads) you use across this site and use it to make both advertising and content more relevant to you on our network and other sites.